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Master Thread Dance Your Cares Away/Fraggle/Law Abiding Citizens
- Thread starter Bryan74b
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The Biden administration’s unforced errors in foreign affairs keep on mounting.
First was the deadly, botched exit from Afghanistan and ensuing humanitarian disaster. Then came the Pentagon’s belated disclosure that its Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul killing 10 civilians, seven of them children, which the Defense Department mischaracterized for weeks, was, in fact, a mistake, or as a Pentagon spokesman put it, a "horrible tragedy of war."
Now, there’s the double crossing of France, America’s oldest ally.
JAMES JAY CARAFANO: BIDEN'S DRONE DISASTER GIVES AMERICANS A BIGGER PROBLEM TO WORRY ABOUT
While candidate Biden vowed to restore the vital foreign alliances that Donald Trump had so badly damaged, President Biden has managed in only eight months to raise widespread doubts at home and abroad both about America’s competence and the reliability of its security guarantees.
Calling the Biden administration’s deal to sell Australia nuclear-powered submarines a "stab in the back," France recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra on Friday.
The U.S. sale prompted Australia to cancel a prior $66 billion agreement to buy French diesel-powered submarines. In the long history of French-American relations, France has never before withdrawn an ambassador from Washington for consultations.
Once again, French furor was as much over the sale itself as the secrecy in which Washington conducted its negotiations. Having been approached by Australia months ago about the purchase, team Biden went to extraordinary steps to hide its negotiations fromParis. The French contract with Australia was among the largest defense contracts in its history, and French President Emmanuel Macron faces elections in seven months.
"For any who still doubted it," said Le Monde, France’s leading daily, "the Biden administration is no different from the Trump administration on this point: The United States comes first, whether it’s in the strategic, economic, financial or health fields, ‘America First’ is the guiding line of the White House’s foreign policy."
Biden administration officials have downplayed France’s fury as a "disagreement between good friends" while defending the sale as essential to bolstering Australia’s and the West’s ability to counter China’s growing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. Several officials noted that the French submarines would have been obsolete by the time they hit the water, and that Australia had assured the administration it would handle French pique over cancellation of its sale.
Still, France sees the U.S. decision and the way in which it was done as "brutal," as French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, as well as a pivot away from both France and the Atlantic alliance in favor of increased focus on countering China’s rise.
French anger over the deal was also exacerbated by Britain’s partnership in the sale, given the historic rivalry between London and Paris and long-standing French suspicions about an ostensible Anglophone cabal to marginalize Paris given its insistence on an independent stance within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Macron’s desire to chart a middle course between Beijing and Washington.
France is not the only country to increasingly doubt America’s fidelity to its allies or security guarantees. Concerns about Washington’s reliability were widespread last week at a conference in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, whose territory has been partially occupied and annexed by Russia since 2014 when Russian-backed forces invaded and occupied Crimea.
Moscow has amassed over100,000 troops on its border and taken other provocative steps; Russian President Vladimir Putin has also claimed Ukraine as an integral part of Russia, denying Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine increasingly fears being surrounded by Russia and its surrogates, by Russia itself, by Russian forces in Belarus in the north, and in the south by Russians in occupied Crimea and the separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova.
So far, over 13,200 Ukrainians have died and two million people have been displaced in the low-intensity war. Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky became only the second European leader to have an official visit in Washington in early September, a visit he had been seeking since his election in 2019, he and other senior officials were quietly disappointed with the outcome.
While Washington agreed to a $60 million increase in military aid, including the sale of Javelin anti-armor missiles and other weapons, bringing annual military aid to Ukraine to over $400 million, several Ukrainian officials and American experts said last week that Zelensky did not get much of what he was seeking.
While Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, called the aid "good in terms of the strategic defense framework," the dire security situation in Ukraine," he said in an interview, called for "a larger U.S. commitment."
In remarks at the opening of the 17-year-old Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting in Kiev, Zelensky obliquely expressed his own disappointment.
While diplomats hailed his Washington visit as a success, Zelensky told the gathering of 100 European officials, diplomats and foreign policy experts that the West’s unwillingness, despite Russia’s aggression, to give his country either a clear path to NATO membership or inclusion in the European Union left him feeling isolated. Ukrainians see both NATO and EU membership as vital to its integration in Europe and the West and deterrence to further Russian aggression.
"Yalta [Crimea’s capital] remains occupied and there is no political will to change that," Zelensky complained. While Biden had assured him that the U.S. would support Ukraine in its war with Russia, "actions speak louder than words," he said.
Ukraine has been particularly disappointed by Biden’s acquiescence to Germany’s requests that Russia be permitted to complete Nord Stream 2, an $11 billion natural gas pipeline that bypasses Ukraine. The pipeline, its critics say, not only denies Ukraine vital gas transit revenues, but also exposes it to Russian blackmail, or energy shutoffs.
The Trump administration tried blocking the pipeline, to German furor, by among other things, sanctioning those participating in its construction. Administration officials say the pipeline was virtually finished when Biden took office and that maintaining the sanctions would serve no purpose other than alienating Berlin, a crucial NATO ally.
But several diplomats challenged Biden’s pipeline shift at the meeting, saying that Russia had stopped working on parts of the pipeline after Trump’s defeat, waiting to see how Biden would react. "Whether it’s to the Taliban or Germany or Russia," John Herbst, a former ambassador to Ukraine and veteran diplomat, told me in an interview, "we’ve seen a pattern from this administration of premature concessions that lead to bad, if not disastrous, results."
"This is not about gas or gas transit fees," said Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukrainian peace talks, in an interview. "It’s about the security of Western Europe."
Also speaking at YES, John Bolton, a former national security adviser who wrote a scathing book about his tenure under President Trump, warned that both Russia and China would conclude from America’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan and its failure to support staunchly countries like Ukraine, that despite the country’s endemic corruption, "we don’t have the will to defend our allies."
When Trump was president, said Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, "Europe was unhappy with its consultations. Now it’s worse. There are no consultations."
Because of the Biden administration’s chaotic Afghan withdrawal and botched implementation of other decisions, he added in an interview, "Biden has undercut his central campaign theme of competence." In a recent tweet, Bildt called Biden’s handling of the submarine sale to Australia "stunningly inept."
While few Europeans want Donald Trump to return to the White House, said one veteran European diplomat, "the fact that Biden is even being compared with him speaks volumes about Biden’s missteps."
First was the deadly, botched exit from Afghanistan and ensuing humanitarian disaster. Then came the Pentagon’s belated disclosure that its Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul killing 10 civilians, seven of them children, which the Defense Department mischaracterized for weeks, was, in fact, a mistake, or as a Pentagon spokesman put it, a "horrible tragedy of war."
Now, there’s the double crossing of France, America’s oldest ally.
JAMES JAY CARAFANO: BIDEN'S DRONE DISASTER GIVES AMERICANS A BIGGER PROBLEM TO WORRY ABOUT
While candidate Biden vowed to restore the vital foreign alliances that Donald Trump had so badly damaged, President Biden has managed in only eight months to raise widespread doubts at home and abroad both about America’s competence and the reliability of its security guarantees.
Calling the Biden administration’s deal to sell Australia nuclear-powered submarines a "stab in the back," France recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra on Friday.
The U.S. sale prompted Australia to cancel a prior $66 billion agreement to buy French diesel-powered submarines. In the long history of French-American relations, France has never before withdrawn an ambassador from Washington for consultations.
Once again, French furor was as much over the sale itself as the secrecy in which Washington conducted its negotiations. Having been approached by Australia months ago about the purchase, team Biden went to extraordinary steps to hide its negotiations fromParis. The French contract with Australia was among the largest defense contracts in its history, and French President Emmanuel Macron faces elections in seven months.
"For any who still doubted it," said Le Monde, France’s leading daily, "the Biden administration is no different from the Trump administration on this point: The United States comes first, whether it’s in the strategic, economic, financial or health fields, ‘America First’ is the guiding line of the White House’s foreign policy."
Biden administration officials have downplayed France’s fury as a "disagreement between good friends" while defending the sale as essential to bolstering Australia’s and the West’s ability to counter China’s growing military assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. Several officials noted that the French submarines would have been obsolete by the time they hit the water, and that Australia had assured the administration it would handle French pique over cancellation of its sale.
Still, France sees the U.S. decision and the way in which it was done as "brutal," as French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, as well as a pivot away from both France and the Atlantic alliance in favor of increased focus on countering China’s rise.
French anger over the deal was also exacerbated by Britain’s partnership in the sale, given the historic rivalry between London and Paris and long-standing French suspicions about an ostensible Anglophone cabal to marginalize Paris given its insistence on an independent stance within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Macron’s desire to chart a middle course between Beijing and Washington.
France is not the only country to increasingly doubt America’s fidelity to its allies or security guarantees. Concerns about Washington’s reliability were widespread last week at a conference in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, whose territory has been partially occupied and annexed by Russia since 2014 when Russian-backed forces invaded and occupied Crimea.
Moscow has amassed over100,000 troops on its border and taken other provocative steps; Russian President Vladimir Putin has also claimed Ukraine as an integral part of Russia, denying Ukrainian sovereignty. Ukraine increasingly fears being surrounded by Russia and its surrogates, by Russia itself, by Russian forces in Belarus in the north, and in the south by Russians in occupied Crimea and the separatist region of Transnistria in Moldova.
So far, over 13,200 Ukrainians have died and two million people have been displaced in the low-intensity war. Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky became only the second European leader to have an official visit in Washington in early September, a visit he had been seeking since his election in 2019, he and other senior officials were quietly disappointed with the outcome.
While Washington agreed to a $60 million increase in military aid, including the sale of Javelin anti-armor missiles and other weapons, bringing annual military aid to Ukraine to over $400 million, several Ukrainian officials and American experts said last week that Zelensky did not get much of what he was seeking.
While Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, called the aid "good in terms of the strategic defense framework," the dire security situation in Ukraine," he said in an interview, called for "a larger U.S. commitment."
In remarks at the opening of the 17-year-old Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting in Kiev, Zelensky obliquely expressed his own disappointment.
While diplomats hailed his Washington visit as a success, Zelensky told the gathering of 100 European officials, diplomats and foreign policy experts that the West’s unwillingness, despite Russia’s aggression, to give his country either a clear path to NATO membership or inclusion in the European Union left him feeling isolated. Ukrainians see both NATO and EU membership as vital to its integration in Europe and the West and deterrence to further Russian aggression.
"Yalta [Crimea’s capital] remains occupied and there is no political will to change that," Zelensky complained. While Biden had assured him that the U.S. would support Ukraine in its war with Russia, "actions speak louder than words," he said.
Ukraine has been particularly disappointed by Biden’s acquiescence to Germany’s requests that Russia be permitted to complete Nord Stream 2, an $11 billion natural gas pipeline that bypasses Ukraine. The pipeline, its critics say, not only denies Ukraine vital gas transit revenues, but also exposes it to Russian blackmail, or energy shutoffs.
The Trump administration tried blocking the pipeline, to German furor, by among other things, sanctioning those participating in its construction. Administration officials say the pipeline was virtually finished when Biden took office and that maintaining the sanctions would serve no purpose other than alienating Berlin, a crucial NATO ally.
But several diplomats challenged Biden’s pipeline shift at the meeting, saying that Russia had stopped working on parts of the pipeline after Trump’s defeat, waiting to see how Biden would react. "Whether it’s to the Taliban or Germany or Russia," John Herbst, a former ambassador to Ukraine and veteran diplomat, told me in an interview, "we’ve seen a pattern from this administration of premature concessions that lead to bad, if not disastrous, results."
"This is not about gas or gas transit fees," said Kurt Volker, the former U.S. special envoy to Ukrainian peace talks, in an interview. "It’s about the security of Western Europe."
Also speaking at YES, John Bolton, a former national security adviser who wrote a scathing book about his tenure under President Trump, warned that both Russia and China would conclude from America’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan and its failure to support staunchly countries like Ukraine, that despite the country’s endemic corruption, "we don’t have the will to defend our allies."
When Trump was president, said Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, "Europe was unhappy with its consultations. Now it’s worse. There are no consultations."
Because of the Biden administration’s chaotic Afghan withdrawal and botched implementation of other decisions, he added in an interview, "Biden has undercut his central campaign theme of competence." In a recent tweet, Bildt called Biden’s handling of the submarine sale to Australia "stunningly inept."
While few Europeans want Donald Trump to return to the White House, said one veteran European diplomat, "the fact that Biden is even being compared with him speaks volumes about Biden’s missteps."
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Deshaun Watson?
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Needs reposted.
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I Know This Thread is Filled With Metal Heads
That Being Said on Sirius XM I'm More of a BPM and Diplo's Revolution Kind of Guy
It's Just My Jam - Blame It On My Best Party Years Being When MDMA Was Both Legal and Real
We Could Have An Entire Page(s) Related to That Awesome Time and Stories That Would Blow Your Mind
Nonetheless I Think You'll Love This Song and the Title is "Straight Out of Q" - Our Roots
Heard It The Other Day On BPM and Thought of My Fraqqle Fam
Enjoy!
Fun Version
Original Video
That Being Said on Sirius XM I'm More of a BPM and Diplo's Revolution Kind of Guy
It's Just My Jam - Blame It On My Best Party Years Being When MDMA Was Both Legal and Real
We Could Have An Entire Page(s) Related to That Awesome Time and Stories That Would Blow Your Mind
Nonetheless I Think You'll Love This Song and the Title is "Straight Out of Q" - Our Roots
Heard It The Other Day On BPM and Thought of My Fraqqle Fam
Enjoy!
Fun Version
Original Video
Last edited:
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I've Dropped More "Kek" Likes Tonight Than I Have In a Long Time
Trump Doesn't Lose
Trump Doesn't Lose
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Worth the 30 min.
TLDR: Hospitals are killing people (from first hand account of nurse)
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Pretty good listen. (Also upstate SC, representin
) I agree with alot of what he says. Working in a hospital laboratory, I am friends with alot of nurses, including my girlfriend. I have heard alot of them talking about not getting these covid patients to sit up, or stand & walk around. My girlfriend just this weekend was mentioning that, and how terrible it is for these patients.I cannot agree with him about influenza just being counted as covid positives. I have been over that several times in this thread, so I won't rehash it, but that is provably false, and I wish people would stop saying that. Don't think it helps our side to spread misinformation.
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Exactly.
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I cringe at the "White Supremacist mob" they call everything, except of course antifa destruction which is all white for the most part
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Biden Has Lost the Middle...But a Lingering Question Remains
The man is lost in space. He’s weak. He’s stupid. He’s slow. And he simply cannot do the job. There’s too much. President Dementia just doesn’t have the stamina. You
townhall.com
Heads Won’t Roll
There’s one thing you can always be sure of – no one in our garbage elites sucks so much that they will ever have to pay for it. Sure, you
townhall.com
Treason… There, Somebody Said It.
The actions of the current administration consistently undermine the welfare of the American people, they are endangering American welfare, and they have snuffed out American lives.There is no other word
townhall.com
WATCH: Even Mainstream Sunday Shows Slam Biden's Blunders
It's hard for Democrats to use their usual "Republicans Pounce" excuse for the criticism aimed at President Biden and his administration this week as the latest volley of incoming was
townhall.com
'This Is Insane': Elites Gather for Emmys in L.A. Where Apparently COVID Doesn't Exist Anymore
The 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards were held in downtown Los Angeles Sunday evening and, from the way TV's liberal elite acted, the Wuhan coronavirus is apparently over.In a crowded room,
townhall.com
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Fuck that guy!
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Sort of like sending the 82nd Airborne to monitor a 6 y/o's lemonade stand.
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Do they need a vaccine passport to purchase?
About the only criminalized thing in NY
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Looks like a guy in a wig.
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That's not what he is saying though. He said with PCR cycles up so damn high, you are always going to find what you are looking for and will see the COVID 19 material. So even when people are not sick from covid, they are being classified as covid patients naturally because that brings money from the Fed. They could simply be sick from other ailments (Flu, RSV, whatever) and they are falsely treating them for covid (which is also totally inept protocol for treating it and it is intentional and by design).Pretty good listen. (Also upstate SC, representin
I cannot agree with him about influenza just being counted as covid positives. I have been over that several times in this thread, so I won't rehash it, but that is provably false, and I wish people would stop saying that. Don't think it helps our side to spread misinformation.
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I don't always trust trust the Mossad but this I like.
www.globalsecurity.org
Mossad assassinated Iran's top nuclear scientist with 'killer robot': NYT
RollyInRaleigh
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Exactly...the protocols that hospitals continue to use are the definition of insanity...or maybe criminality.
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I agree with that 100% about the PCR cycles, but he did say that about the flu also. They may have mis-treated some patients with the flu, as if they were covid because of a false positive pcr test, but for every one of those you have to explain a false negative flu test too, which I cannot do. I just can't make that theory work, no matter how I think about it.
The flu disappearing is one of the strangest things to happen in the last year IMO, and that is saying something. I haven't heard an explaination that fully explains it yet.
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He sounds like an 18 year old faggit, but what can I talk about my leader doesn't even know his name. You... Know... The... Guy!
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RollyInRaleigh
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That’s like not seeing the Forrest for the trees. The fact that hospitals continue to treat this with protocols that make no sense is absolutely unbelievable. I have a close friend from Charlotte who resigned her position because of exactly the same things this man is saying...she was even on Tucker Carlson’s show. She said that they were basically told not to do the things that they knew to do...things like getting the patient up and moving as they always tried with respiratory ailments...this plot is beyond criminal. Kudos to those who have risked it all and lost their jobs for speaking truth...
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Long Cat V2.0
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The new law that will be all over this race the abortion bill.
